Story Highlights

NEW YORK – What if, Billy Crystal asked, "I could perform parts of my book and hear and see how people respond, and that could become part of the audio book?"

So, Thursday night, Crystal, 65, the comedian, actor, director and nine-time Oscar host, returned to his alma mater, New York University, to read passages of what he calls "kind of a memoir," Still Foolin' Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys?that will be released Sept. 10..

The sold-out event for 300 was a fundraiser for NYU's Helen Crystal Scholarship Fund, named for his mother, who died in 2001.

Crystal tells USA TODAY that after his father died when Crystal was 15, "Mom never asked me, 'Are you sure you really want to do this?' (go into show business) She was always supportive, always the best audience. I'd always listen for her laugh."

Thursday night, Crystal got a lot of laughs, triggered by passages like these:

ON TURNING 65: "I'm not here to bitch and moan…Wait, I am, but I'm trying to answer the really fundamental questions of life: Where are we as Baby Boomers? Where are we going? Where have we been? Did anything we do really matter? If there's an afterlife, do they have digital cable? What's next for us? Do the Yankees have enough pitching?"

ON AGING: "At 60, I could do the same things I could do at 30, if I could only remember what those things are."

ON SENIOR SEX: "Your libido slows downs…you don't kid yourself and look at 25-year-olds anymore. Actually, I do, but they're out of focus, and by the time I get my glasses on, they're gone. When you're 65, you're surprised by what now turns you on. You look at Dame Edna and think, You know what, maybe."

ON SEX AT ANY AGE: "I've always thought that the key to a good sex life is variety. That's why God gave me two hands. Humans love sex, we need sex, it's how we connect, it reminds us we're alive, it's the third most basic human need, after food and good movie popcorn."

ON AN AFTERLIFE: "I'd like to think there is a heaven and it starts from the happiest day in your life. I'll be 18 and Janice Goldfinger (his wife of 43 years) will walk by me in a bikini and I will follow her and it will start all over again. I'd really like to think that."